Spare a thought for the Little Monsters. After twenty years of clawing through Lady Gaga’s every era, outfit, and outrage, their overlord has served so many bananas looks that choosing just one to replicate feels near impossible. And yet here we are again: scissors and bubble wrap in hand, ready for Mother Monster’s Mayhem Ball.
It’s night two of Gaga’s run at London’s O2. We’re all a little older now, the Little Monsters and I, a bit more sensitive to a late September chill, more Cos than cosplay. But when mother calls, we rally. The Jubilee Line is a sea of lace, gothic makeup and coke-can rollers. It’s been three years since the Chromatica Ball landed at Tottenham Stadium – a long wait in monster years. We’re here to mark Gaga’s seventh album ‘Mayhem’, a wildly successful record that visually harked back to the dark theatrics of her earlier years. For the stans who love the spectacle, there’s no better night of the year.
It’s an early start tonight with no support (honestly, who is worthy?). As the stadium fills, Gaga is on screen, writing a very, very long note with a giant red quill. Is it her Christmas list? Or a strongly-worded letter to the council?
The lights dim and two giant Germanottas appear on screen, one dressed in red, the other white. It’s to be a game of two halves, a round of chess, with two queens fighting to the death. And we’re ready for the opening gambit.
Gaga’s entrance is as shy and retiring as we’ve come to expect. She’s the demonic dolly atop a giant frilly toilet roll cover, which lifts its skirt to reveal a cage of dancers. The stage is a gothic castle, steeped in red light, silhouetted bodies writhe in the windows as the chants of ‘Bloody Mary’ echo through the arena..
Gaga instructs us to put our paws up approximately 72 times in the first ten minutes. By the 71st, it starts to feel a little like she’s glitching out, but nevertheless, we oblige. She soon emerges from her bog-roll throne, a decrepit Queen of Hearts, skulking down the runway with the assistance of a red cane for ‘Abracadabra’. It’s a deliciously strange sight.
As we move through ‘Judas’ and ‘Scheiße’, Gaga picks up a guitar for the first of three shred sessions of the night. It’s not plugged in – a taunt to all the keyboard warrior guitar nerds out there and a reminder, if you weren’t sure, that this is theatre.
The show is split into five acts, each with a fabulously melodramatic name: Of Velvet and Vice; The Beautiful Nightmare That Knows Her Name; Every Chessboard Has Two Queens, The Eternal Aria of the Monster Heart. The narrative arc sees Gaga battling with alter egos, caught between life and death. Act II finds her in a huge sandy grave, motorboating a skeleton while she sings ‘Perfect Celebrity’. Because if you could, you would, wouldn’t you?
‘Paparazzi’ provides one of the night’s most arresting visual moments. As she clanks down the runway on crutches in a sexy suit of armour, a billowing white train extends behind her, engulfing the enormity of the O2 stage. Projected with rainbow colours, it’s a subtle show of solidarity with her LGBTQI+ fanbase, before the whole thing is wound back in like the plug on a vacuum cleaner.
Before Act III arrives, we descend into metal mayhem. There’s a drum solo, Gaga thrashes about on guitar while her dude-band are projected on screen in a Bulls On Parade-esque X-Ray light. Forget paws, our horns are well and truly up.
The ballads come thick ‘n’ fast in Act 4. ‘Million Reasons’, a personal ‘Joanne’ highlight and the only outing from her divisive country record, is a tremendous singalong moment. For ‘Shallow’, she’s in a Viking ship, rowed down the O2 gangway by a ferryman in a red gimp mask. There, she takes her seat at the piano for the Bruno Mars-featuring ‘Die With A Smile’, (though sans Bruno). For a moment, Gaga is overcome with emotion. Tears fill her eyes as she says how lucky she feels to be here.
Fans will know this to be the part of the set where she plays one of two secret songs. Tonight, we’re treated to a piano version of Fame Monster’s ‘Dance In The Dark’ – the song’s first outing since 2020 and its debut in acoustic form. ‘Edge of Glory’, follows. But all this is merely a respite – we’re not done with the weird.
For the final act, Gaga is no more. Emerging from under a plastic sheet on a mortuary table, surrounded by medieval plague doctors, she reanimates with a pair of paws to rule them all – long, spindly Grinch hands, with which to gift us ‘Bad Romance’, one of the all-time greatest pop bangers.
The stage catches ablaze in a moment a little reminiscent of the Eras Tour (but Taylor wasn’t the first woman to use pyro and Gaga won’t be the last) and the crowd erupts.
We could have left it here – perfectly sated by two hours of complete and utter mayhem but Gaga has one more scene to play. We are transported to her dressing room, where she’s makeup-free in a black beanie. She appears on stage, with her troupe of dancers in their trackies, to sing ‘How Bad Do U Want Me’ and bop along to ‘Monster’.
A fan hands her a rainbow flag and in her final moments, she drapes it over her shoulders before the credits roll, as the crowd hug and weep. It’s tender, almost ordinary – but that’s the illusion. Gaga can dress like us, sweat like us, present like us, but she’s nothing like you or me. She’s the queen who always owns the board, and tonight, she delivered the sweetest Checkmate.
The Mayhem Ball setlist
Act I: Of Velvet & Vice
Bloody Mary
Abracadabra
Judas
Aura
Scheiße
Garden of Eden
Poker Face
Abracadabra
Act II: And She Fell Into a Gothic Dream
Perfect Celebrity
Disease
Paparazzi
LoveGame
Alejandro
The Beast
Act III: The Beautiful Nightmare That Knows Her Name
Killah
Zombieboy
The Dead Dance
LoveDrug
Applause
Just Dance
Act IV: Every Chessboard Has Two Queens
Shadow of a Man
Kill for Love
Summerboy
Born This Way
Million Reasons
Shallow
Die With a Smile
Dance in the Dark (first time sung fully since 2020; acoustic on piano)
The Edge of Glory (acoustic on piano)
Vanish Into You
The Dead Dance
Finale: The Eternal Aria of the Monster Heart
Bad Romance
Encore:
How Bad Do U Want Me
Monster (backing track)
